The invention relates to a method and device for abstracting moisture and fluid from one or more bodies using a bed of moisture and fluid-absorbing beads.
In various processes and therapeutic treatments fluid is abstracted from bodies, that is, objects such as industrial or agricultural products and living creatures such as humans and animals. A known method is to place the body partly or completely in a bed of absorbent beads, which beads subsequently abstract the fluid from the body in a more or less uniform manner.
The object of the invention is to improve the above-mentioned method and device by the provision of an air supply system for the fluidization of the beads in the bed. A better enclosure of the body by the absorbent beads is thereby achieved, whereby the air flow not only brings about a constant change in contact between beads and body but at the same time regenerates the beads by abstracting moisture and fluid from them.
In a preferred embodiment an air drying device is arranged in the air supply system, ensuring that the air supplied to the fluidization bed has a low relative degree of humidity, which increases the regenerative action of the fluidization bed.
The invention relates further to a therapeutic device for the conditioning of bedridden patients, which device contains an air-permeable lying surface to carry the patient, an air chamber arranged thereunder with the bead-form moisture and fluid-abstracting filling, an air supply system leading into the chamber and provided with a treatment device for obtaining the required temperature at a low relative humidity.
Such devices are normally used with seriously ill patients such as coronary, surgical, intensive care, neurosurgical, skin transplant and burn-wounds patients and the like, who have not only to be painlessly supported but also as uniformly as possible and with a predetermined lying surface temperature. This lying surface temperature can be significantly lower than the ambient temperature. The lying surface must also be suitable for allowing body fluids to pass through and be drawn downward, whereby the problem arises that these fluids have to be removed in a hygienic manner and without interfering with the fluidization of the beads. Because of the danger of infection it is not possible to carry away these fluids outside the area in which the device is installed.
The invention further proposes a device which is distinguished in that the air chamber has a fluid discharge opening which leads to a heating member for evaporating the discharged fluids.
As a result of this step a discharge does not have to be arranged, which maintains the antiseptic conditioning in the nursing area. The formation of clusters of beads through excessive moisture and fluid absorption is avoided, which cluster-formation would lead to a hardening of the lying surface. The humidity of the surrounding air thereby remains at a desired level, sufficient to rapidly humidify the relatively dry air exuding from the lying surface, which makes the ambient air more pleasant for the patient.
Where the air treatment device is provided with a cooling circuit, consisting of a compressor, evaporating means and condenser, it is recommended according to the invention to embody the evaporating means with a condensation collector communicating with the air chamber and in which the heating member is arranged. In this way both the moisture and fluid exuding from the processing air and the body fluid can be evaporated simultaneously. In a particularly simple embodiment the heating member is a heat exchanger arranged in the connecting line from the compressor to the condenser. In this way the medium (for example freon) which serves to cool and dry the processing air can be used at the same time for the heating member in order to evaporate the released fluid.
The above mentioned and other characteristics are further elucidated in the figure description of an embodiment given below.